Buzzie Bavasi | |
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| Born | (1914-12-12)December 12, 1914 Manhattan, New York, U.S. |
| Died | May 1, 2008(2008-05-01) (aged 93) San Diego, California, U.S. |
| Education | DePauw University |
| Occupation |
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| Spouse | |
| Children | 4; includingPeter andBill |
Baseball player Baseball career | |
| Career highlights and awards | |
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Emil Joseph "Buzzie" Bavasi (/bəˈveɪzi/; December 12, 1914 – May 1, 2008) was an American executive inMajor League Baseball who played a major role in the operation of three California baseball franchises from the late 1940s through the mid-1980s, most notably as thegeneral manager of theLos Angeles Dodgers from 1958 to 1968.
He began his career with theBrooklyn Dodgers. During his tenure with the team, the Dodgers captured eightNational League pennants and its first fourWorld Series titles. He was previously a key figure in theintegration ofMinor League Baseball in the late 1940s while working for the Dodgers organization. He went on to become the firstpresident of theSan Diego Padres (1968–77); then, between 1977 and 1984, as general manager, he assembled theCalifornia Angels teams that made the franchise's first two postseason appearances. His sonsPeter Bavasi andBill Bavasi have also served as big league general managers.
He was born Emil Joseph Bavasi inManhattan, New York City. His sister, Iola ("Lolly"), nicknamed him Buzzie because his mother said he was "always buzzing around."[1] Bavasi was raised inScarsdale, New York, by Joseph and Sue Bavasi. Joseph, his immigrant father, was a newspaper distributor.[2]
He went to high school atFordham Preparatory School, in theBronx, with Fred Frick, the son ofFord Frick, president of the National League.[2]
He attendedDePauw University, inGreencastle, Indiana, where he was acatcher and while at DePauw roomed with Fred Frick, after which Ford Frick recommended Bavasi for an office boy position with the Dodgers toLarry MacPhail.[1] Bavasi graduated from DePauw in 1938.[3]
Bavasi was hired by Dodgersgeneral manager Larry MacPhail in1938, for $35 a week, to become a front office assistant with theBrooklyn Dodgers, and after one year was named the business manager of the Dodgers' Class D minor league team inAmericus, Georgia, where he spent three seasons. In 1941 he moved toDurham, North Carolina, Class B team of the Dodgers and married his wife, Evit.[2]
After being drafted, he was awarded aBronze Star Medal fighting in theItalian Campaign of World War II as a machine-gunner in theUnited States Army.[1][2]
In late 1945, after serving 18 months, Staff Sergeant Bavasi returned to Georgia to rest with his family. While there, Dodgers presidentBranch Rickey telephoned and asked Bavasi to become business manager of a new minor-league baseball team in theNew England League, and to find a suitable city in which to place the club.
Although Bavasi did not know for certain, he suspected that Rickey, who had started to integrate the Dodgers' farm system with the signing ofJackie Robinson the previous October, might be planning to sign more African Americans to contracts. If that was the case, the Dodgers needed a low-level minor-league team outside theAmerican South to which to assign these players. Ultimately, Bavasi choseNashua, New Hampshire. With fewer than 35,000 people, Nashua would be the smallest market in the New England League, and fewer than fifty African Americans resided in the community. However, theNashua Dodgers were assured of a predominantly French Canadian fan base, a fact which both Rickey and Bavasi believed would help in the integration of African Americans into minor league baseball. Additionally, Nashua was home to the relatively newHolman Stadium, which Bavasi was able to lease from the city.
In March 1946, Bavasi received word that Brooklyn had signed formerNegro league ballplayersRoy Campanella andDon Newcombe, and that they would be sent to Nashua for the season. Bavasi spent nearly a month planning for their arrival, namingNashua Telegraph managing editor Fred Dobens to the position of President of the Nashua Dodgers to ensure the newspaper's support for the integration project; Dobens' newspaper did not release any word of the signings until April. Dobens’ younger brother, Ray Dobens, a former pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, was named general manager. Bavasi also publicly linked the team toClyde Sukeforth, who had scouted Campanella, Newcombe, and Jackie Robinson for Rickey and who had played minor-league baseball in Nashua in the mid-1920s. He promoted the team's French Canadian connection through his team'sQuebec-born players, and even attempted to hireFrenchy Bordagaray to manage the team (eventually he settled onWalter Alston).
The 1946 season was a successful one. The Nashua Dodgers placed second in the league and won the Governor's Cup, defeating theLynn Red Sox. In terms of attendance, Nashua also proved successful, in part because of Bavasi's imaginative promotional skills. The league saw few racially motivated incidents, with two exceptions. Campanella has claimed that Manchester GiantscatcherSal Yvars threw dirt in his face during a game at Manchester Athletic Field (Gill Stadium), but the incident was resolved on the field (though Yvars has denied that the incident took place). More seriously, players and the manager of theLynn Red Sox hurled racial slurs and insults at Campanella and Newcombe, particularly late in the season when the two clubs were locked in a tight pennant race. On one occasion, Bavasi was so enraged by the comments of the Red Sox that he met Lynn's manager and players in the Holman Stadium parking lot and challenged them to a fight. Players restrained Bavasi and the Lynn manager, and the Lynn team boarded their bus without further incident.
As a result of their success in Nashua, Bavasi, Campanella, and Alston all were promoted to teams in higher-level leagues in 1947, and Newcombe followed in 1948.
In 1948, Bavasi becamegeneral manager of theMontreal Royals, one of the Dodgers' top twoTriple-A farm teams. Around that time, as a result of continued prejudice against Brooklyn's African American ballplayers duringspring training, the Dodgers sent Bavasi to find property at which to establish a permanent spring training facility. Bavasi chose a site outsideVero Beach, Florida, at which to establish Dodgertown, anchored by the newly constructedHolman Stadium. The Dodgers continued to train there virtually without interruption through2008 before moving to a new facility inGlendale, Arizona.
During Bavasi's term in Montreal, disagreements over the operation of the parent team in Brooklyn intensified between Rickey andWalter O'Malley; at the time, Rickey and O'Malley were two of four equal partners in the Dodgers, each holding 25 percent of the club's stock. In 1950, the illness and death of another partner, pharmaceutical executiveJohn L. Smith, coincided with the pending expiration of Rickey's contract as the Dodgers' president and general manager. With Smith and, later, his widow both siding with O'Malley, Rickey's contract was not renewed. O'Malley then acquired Rickey's stock to assume 50 percent ownership, took over as team president, and named Bavasi (then 35 years old) the Dodgers' vice president andde facto general manager on November 3, 1950. O'Malley would acquire Mary Louise Smith's 25 percent share in 1958, then become sole owner in 1975 when he bought out theheirs of Dearie Mulvey's one-quarter stake in the team. Bavasi would be given the formal title ofexecutive vice president and general manager prior to the 1958 season.
In Bavasi's nearly 18 years as the team's top baseball operations executive, the Dodgers won eightNational League pennants (1952,1953,1955,1956,1959,1963,1965 and1966)—including the first fourWorld Series titles in franchise history (1955,1959,1963 and1965). Three world championships occurred after the team's move toLos Angeles in1958, a move that Bavasi did not favor.[4] The Dodgers also finished in a dead heat twice with theGiants, necessitating tie-breaking, best-of-three series in both1951 and1962. But they dropped the clinching playoff games in the ninth innings of each contest.
While the nucleus of the Brooklyn-based team was in place when Bavasi took over in 1951, he and O'Malley remained committed to the Dodgers' extensive scouting and player development system that Rickey had constructed after the war. That system contributed players such asJoe Black,Jim Gilliam,Johnny Podres andSandy Amoros (heroes of the 1955 World Series),Roger Craig,Don Drysdale,Sandy Koufax,Charlie Neal,John Roseboro andDon Zimmer to the Dodgers before their move to California. In the late 1950s, it producedLarry Sherry, arelief pitcher who was key to the 1959 pennant and World Series title. It also began to churn out the core regulars of the Dodgers' 1960s dynasty, such asTommy Davis,Willie Davis,Ron Fairly,Frank Howard andMaury Wills. During the mid-1960s, the Dodgers developedJim Lefebvre,Wes Parker andDon Sutton, key contributors to their 1965–66 pennants. Bavasi also made strategic additions of veteran players who proved pivotal to pennant-winning teams, likeSal Maglie (1956),Wally Moon (1959),Bill Skowron (1963),Claude Osteen (1965–66, after he was acquired for Howard),Lou Johnson (1965–66) andPhil Regan (1966). In 1960, he acquired (in a trade for Zimmer) a minor-leagueleft-handedrelief pitcher from theChicago Cubs,Ron Perranoski, who would anchor the Dodgers'bullpen through 1967.
Bavasi also strongly recommendedWalter Alston to O'Malley as a potential Brooklyn manager after the 1953 season. Alston, then a career minor leaguer, had managed for Bavasi in Nashua (1946) and Montreal (1950). O'Malley would hire Alston and sign him to 23 consecutive one-year contracts, with Alston winning seven National League pennants and four World Series titles while forging a place in theBaseball Hall of Fame.[1]
In the days surrounding Bavasi's June 1968 departure from the Dodgers, the club enjoyed what has been called the bestamateur draft in baseball history. The regular and secondary phases of the 1968 June lottery, supervised byFresco Thompson andAl Campanis, the team's top minor league and scouting officials who would be Bavasi's immediate successors as GM, nettedSteve Garvey,Ron Cey,Bill Buckner,Bobby Valentine,Joe Ferguson,Doyle Alexander and others.[5]
During his time with the Dodgers, Bavasi became known for his deceptive methods of negotiating contracts with players. He prided himself in giving as little salary to a player as possible. Amongst his methods was leaving a fake contract on his desk during a negotiation with a player and leaving the room for a while. The player, noticing the lesser salary his star teammate was getting compared to what they was asking, would often lower the salary he wanted.[6]
He also played players against each other. However, in 1966, tired of being played against each other, Dodger pitchersSandy Koufax andDon Drysdale staged ajoint holdout in which they were successful in getting Bavasi to bend a little. Though Bavasi dismissed the holdout as a "gimmick", it turned out to be the first notable event in baseball's labor movement.[7]
In June of 1968, Bavasi resigned from the Dodgers to become president and minority owner of theSan Diego Padres, anexpansion team set to debut in1969. Bavasi selected Dodgerthird-base coachPreston Gómez as the Padres' firstmanager and added former Dodgers (or Dodger farmhands) Craig, Moon andSparky Anderson as coaches for their maiden season. While the pickings in theNational League expansion draft were slim, Bavasi managed to select sluggerNate Colbert and hard-hittingoutfieldersOllie Brown andCito Gaston, who provided punch to the Padre lineup during the team's early history.
The early Padres teams struggled on the field, finishing last in theNational League West Division for their first six years of existence, losing over 100 games four times (and 99 games once). The team's high-water mark during Bavasi's nine-year term as club president would occur in1976, when it won 73 games. Poor attendance forced majority ownerC. Arnholdt Smith to put the Padres up for sale in 1973 and almost drove them to transfer toWashington, D.C. But fast-food magnateRay Kroc stepped in and saved the Padres forSan Diego, and attendance perked up beginning in 1974, Kroc's first season as owner.
Although veteran minor league executiveEddie Leishman held the title of general manager during the team's early seasons, Bavasi was integrally involved in baseball decisions. After the 1972 season, he promoted his sonPeter from farm system director to GM, and the younger Bavasi drafted future Hall of FamerDave Winfield with the club's first-round pick in the1973 Major League Baseball Draft. Peter left the Padres after the 1976 campaign to become the first president in the history of the expansionToronto Blue Jays, and in 1977, the Bavasis became the first father-and-son duo to serve as chief executives of two different MLB teams at the same time.
After the 1977 season,California Angels ownerGene Autry hired the elder Bavasi as executive vice president and general manager. During his seven years in the post, the Angels capturedAmerican League West Division titles in1979 and1982, the club's first-ever appearances in the baseball postseason. But each time the Angels failed to advance to the World Series, dropping the1979 American League Championship Series to theBaltimore Orioles and the1982 ALCS to theMilwaukee Brewers.
Through trades, free agency and the club's farm system, Bavasi acquired players such asRod Carew,Reggie Jackson,Carney Lansford,Bob Boone,Fred Lynn,Mike Witt andDon Aase. But there were setbacks: the shocking death of star free agent outfielderLyman Bostock, who was murdered late during the 1978 season in a case of mistaken identity, and the failure to retain future all-timestrikeout kingNolan Ryan when he became a free agent after the 1979 campaign. Nearing age 70, Bavasi retired during the closing days of the1984 season, when the Angels finished at the .500 mark.
Bavasi's sonBill is the former general manager of theSeattle Mariners andCalifornia Angels; son Peter held president or general manager positions with the Padres, Blue Jays andCleveland Indians during the 1970s and 1980s; and another son, Chris, formerly served as mayor ofFlagstaff, Arizona. With his wife, Evit, they had a fourth son, Bob, the former owner of theEverett AquaSox.[1]
Bavasi was inducted into theSan Diego Padres Hall of Fame in 2001.[8] In 2007, he was also inducted by theSan Diego Hall of Champions, honoring San Diego's finest athletes both on and off the playing surface.[9]
ActorWally Cassell played Buzzie (Dodgers manager) in season 1, episode 29 ofThe Beverly Hillbillies, titled "The Clampetts & the Dodgers".[10]
Bavasi died on May 1, 2008, inSan Diego, California, near his home inLa Jolla, aged 93.[1][2]
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| Preceded by | Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers general manager 1950–1968 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Franchise established | San Diego Padrespresident 1968–1977 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | California Angelsgeneral manager 1977–1984 | Succeeded by |
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